Buddhism, as before hinted, does not seem to have ever gained a footing of much importance among any of the Dravidian races of India, and as early as the 7th century the few votaries of Buddha that existed in the south of India were finally expelled.[356] So completely was it extirpated that I do not know of one single Buddhist monument south of the Kistnah, except the tope at Amravati described above, and am inclined very much to doubt if any really important ones ever existed. The Jaina religion, on the contrary, continued to nourish at Conjeveram and in the Mysore, and seems to have succeeded Buddhism in these places, and to have attracted to itself whatever tendency there may have been towards the doctrines of Buddhism on the part of the southern people. Though influential from their intelligence, the Jains never formed more than a small numerical fraction of the people among whom they were located. The Hindu religion, which thus became supreme, is now commonly designated the Brahmanical, in order to distinguish it from the earlier Vedic religion, which, however, never seems to have been known in the south. The two sects into which it is divided consist of the worshippers of Siva and of Vishnu, and are now quite distinct and almost antagonistic; but both are now so overloaded with absurd fables and monstrous superstitions, that it is very difficult to ascertain what they really are or ever were. Nor are we yet in a position to speak confidently of their origin. Recent discoveries in Assyria seem, however, to point to that country as the origin of much that we find underlying the local colouring of the Vaishnava faith. Garuda, the eagle-headed Vahana, and companion of Vishnu, seems identical with the figure now so familiar to us in Assyrian sculpture, probably representing Ormazd. The fish-god of the Assyrians, Dagon, prefigures the “Fish-Avatar,” or incarnation of Vishnu. The man-lion is not more familiar to us in Assyria than in India, and tradition generally points to the West for the other figures scarcely so easily recognised--more especially Bali, whose name alone is an index to his origin; and Maha Assura, who, by a singular inversion, is a man with a bull’s head,[357] instead of a bull with a man’s head, as he is always figured in his native land. It is worthy of remark that the ninth Avatar of Vishnu is always Buddha himself, thus pointing to a connexion between these two extremes of Indian faith; and we are told by inscriptions of the 14th century that there was then no appreciable difference between the Jains and Vaishnavas.[358] Indeed, as pointed out in the introduction, it seems impossible to avoid considering these three faiths as three stages of one superstition of a native race--Buddhism being the oldest and purest; Jainism a faith of similar origin, but overlaid with local superstitions; and Vishnuism a third form, suited to the capacity of the natives of India in modern times,